


Reaper Must Die (Hiatus)

by NevaRYadL



Series: The Rise, Fall and Rise again of Overwatch, Otherwise Known as Gaywatch [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Background Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, Body Horror, But it's not explored really, Don't Judge Me, Double Agent Sombra, Fix-It, Forgiveness, Gore, Identity Issues, Lovers to enemies to lovers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mild Language, Morally Dubious Mercy, Not yet >:3c, One More Time, Rating May Change, Rewrite, She's not evil but some of her methods and thinking are... not nice, Suicidal Thoughts, The background couples have changed hold onto your pants, Trans Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, background polycule, double agent Reaper, personal angst, suicidal idealization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-03 05:29:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14561910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevaRYadL/pseuds/NevaRYadL
Summary: The grim Reaper is dying, cells decaying too fast for his body to catch up. He feels like he is falling apart and the end is neigh. Mind broken, body literally falling apart on him, what happens when he wonders right into Overwatch's front lawn? Is this the end of the new age boogeyman or will someone see something redeemable in him?((Rewrite of Death of a Modern Day Boogeyman or How Gabriel Reyes Lived Again, to update with more lore and updated headcanons (as well as bring it away from the edgy dark rewrite that it was heading with the previous rewrite).))((On indefinite hiatus))





	1. Well Ain't that a Kick in the Head?

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Mentioned past Reaper76, body horror, gore, language, suicidal thoughts/idealization, mentioned mental health issues, identity crisis/issues, trans Mercy
> 
> Death to the Modern Day Boogey Man

Reaper, formerly Gabriel Reyes, formerly Blackwatch Strike Commander, formerly human... could not hold himself together in any sense.

Normally, this was Reaper's norm. Holding himself together emotionally, physically and generally mentally had been thrown out of the metaphorical window as any sort of possibility years ago after… after Overwatch. A laundry list of mental problems and illnesses plus his inhuman and inhumane physical state worked against Reaper every day he dared existed on this plane. If it was not the mental instability, it was his physical instability that reminded Reaper, often painfully, that he was an affront to nature itself and it seemed that the reality of this world was trying to forcibly rejected him. But the thing that had made him after what had destroyed the Swiss base was stubborn like that and Reaper found himself continuing to exist, though not for want to simply stop living.

Talon, as a whole, had gotten used to his 'moody' behavior that came from his PTSD, BPD, deep and suicidal depression, general mental instability and physical instability. Anything Reaper spat out they had learned to duck or take within stride over the few years that he worked with them. When Reaper started shooting holes into walls, when he started screaming to the point that his throat broke apart and monstrous screams and blood poured from him, when he broke apart into a ghost like creature that could suck the souls from foolish people that came too close, Talon learned hard and fast. Often they closed off the area that Reaper was tearing apart in his wild frenzy, to prevent wandering agents from making a fatal mistake and keep damage to a minimum. People who were foolish enough to cross Reaper’s path were not mourned. They had stopped caring to reprehend Reaper for any unfortunate deaths on his hands early in his career with Talon.

Physically Reaper literally failed to keep himself together after his cells had been forever changed by the decaying effects of the SEP program, what Moira did to him and finally the explosion at the Swiss base that birthed him. Ever since the explosion, Reaper knew that he had lost humanity and no longer had to play by the laws of man, but more importantly his cells knew this and always acted a little off. If his concentration wavered, if his rage overtook him, if his tired mind wavered, his atoms fell apart at the seams and he fell apart into black smoke or parts of him wavered like a heat illusion before someone's very eyes. Sometimes his atoms would fall apart against his wishes and it was like parts of him ceasing to exist and even if Reaper thought of himself as the modern day boogeyman, a small part of his broken mind still thought as a man, as Gabriel Reyes, and he always panicked when these ‘attacks’ took him. It was terribly inconvenient and unpleasant. At least if any part of his head broke apart against his will, then his mind blissfully went blank, and he would existence in limbo as his body wavered until it pulled itself together again.

But lately... something strange was going on.

Reaper started losing almost total control over his phase shifting.

It had been nothing at first. One day, one of Reaper's usual bouts of emotional hysteria of sorts came onto him, and he had broken apart completely, thankfully within the safety of a borrowed room within one of the Talon Bases. According to the digital clock in the room, after he had fully reformed, it had only been about fifteen minutes of existing like Schrodinger's cat. Honestly that should have been Reaper’s first warning that something was _terribly, **terribly**_ wrong, as most of his ‘attacks’ always lasted more than hour, without fail. But perhaps like the many red flags before that should have clued in the boogeyman to his approaching actual death, Reaper ignored it in favor of continuing to miserably exist.

When Reaper had stood straight and taken a step forward, his right leg, and just his right leg, suddenly broke apart, and he found himself on the floor. He did not have time to question it before his left arm fell off and most of his chest started to fall apart, breaking apart into greasy smoke and black decayed flesh and thick rotted blood, spilling his innards to the floor. It took almost an hour of panicking and gathering his concentration to pull himself back together. A complete hour of slowly watching his body dissolve into black smoke against his will, watching his blackened insides wetly hit the floor as his skin, bones and muscles faded away into thick black smoke. When Reaper had finally managed to pull himself together, he lay on the ground sticky with his own thick and congealed blood and felt something akin to fear soak his brain. Something that Reaper had not felt for years.

After that, Reaper had both his normal instances of completely falling apart and instances where only parts of him started coming apart.

One such instance was when they were attempting to steal some data from a local gang of organized gangsters. Reaper had one of his partial attacks that turned into one of his normal attacks.

They had Sombra on getting the data out of the gang’s computer system. Widowmaker and himself were set to protect her in the small room at the very back of some older building and the door cracked just enough to still hear Sombra, himself double-fisting his shotguns while Widowmaker lounged on her side and casually shot out of the bottom corner of a door they were covering. Reaper heard his protege humming some tune underneath her breath as she tapped, tapped, tapped away.

A cheery hacker that hummed as she worked, chuckling oh so smugly when she figured out a particularly nasty or difficult part of coding. It had been annoying when they had started working together, noise grating against Reaper’s ears. But it had become a constant noise while they worked together and a sure sign that Sombra was making progress in her work. If she was silent or bitching out what she was hacking then she was not making progress and Reaper had to shoot a lot more people or deal with a lot more shit than he wanted too when that happened.

Double-fisting shotguns, Reaper felt the usual muscle tearing and bone cracking buck of the heavily modified weapons with each spat out buckshot shell. Sometimes the whistling shots of Widowmaker’s sniper rifle ruffled his coat and made his ears buzz. It was its own music, Reaper supposed, Sombra’s humming, the roar of each shot shell and the sharp whistle of each shot from Widow’s sniper rifle. The constant noise that kept Reaper’s thoughts from wandering where they were not supposed to go and himself from getting too comfortable and slipping back into the memories of a certain dead man.

[Comm Channel: Extra Fuckers]  
[Hack3r5Lyfe: almost done!]  
[BlackWidow: Hurry up, I am getting bored.]  
[Hack3r5Lyfe: how ya holdin’ up, Reaps?]

Ignoring the communication device buzzing in his ear, Reaper kept unloading round after round into the guards trying to press forward. Thanks to several devious hackings on Sombra’s part, the guards did not have a gun or bullet between any of them. But the station had been stocked in clunky but bullet eating kinetic shields hidden away in the basement. Reaper was currently trying to put holes in any of them, but he was one man against a fucking lot of shields.

Reaper’s shotguns _clicked_ with the telltale sound of an empty clip. He dropped them to dematerialize them, meaning to rematerialize them close enough to the many ammo belts along his hips. Easy, he had done it so many times before. Metal vanished from his hands, first step check, dropped far down enough that he could reach down to re-gather the dematerialized matter, second step check, reached up and rematerialized it enough to catch some ammo on the belt across his upper left hip, check. The newly reformed guns pressed against his hands again, and he lifted one arm to shoot.

_BANG!_

Reaper keenly felt the loss of weight of both his shotgun and his arm before he felt physical the loss of arm, standing and staring blankly as his mind first went into shock and then confusion. Slowly, Reaper turned to look over his shoulder and stared at his severed arm and the smoking stump, metal talon tipped gauntlets still holding onto the grip of his gun. The severed limb bled thick black blood onto the ground, dribbling like mud onto the cheap carpet.

“ _What?_ ” Reaper rasped out dumbly.

What in the hell was happening? This was not normal, so how? Wait… oh shit.

Snapping out of his daze with a snarl, Reaper lifted his other arm and started shooting with _that_ gun instead, ignoring the way that the skin and muscle of his bicep and shoulder were slowly breaking apart into black smoke. The leisurely pace that Widowmaker had been shooting amped up a bit, Widowmaker noting that he was missing _a fucking arm_ and that really was not normal with how many fucked up things that were normal with Reaper.

[hack3r5Lyfe: reaper????]  
[BoogeyMan: **Don’t worry about me, keep working Sombra** ]

Reaper kept shooting, even as most of his shoulder dissolved into black smoke and the dissolving started creeping along the side of his neck and creeping along his chest. Little flicks of black smoke started creeping inside of his mask, vision going dark like a cheap filter on a camera lens and Reaper hoped that the breaking up did not creep up his neck and towards his head. Reaper could not afford to go mindless during an op, not now.

 _Bang!_

There went his other arm, flying across the room and hitting the door that was supposed to provide some cover for Sombra and knocking it wide open. Reaper looked behind him to see Sombra standing up and away from the console that she had been hunched over, her eyes popped open and gaping at the slowly fading shape of the left side of his chest and the now dissolving right bicep. A lot of fucked up and Lovecraftian shit was normal for Reaper, but shit like this was too fucked up to even be normal for the modern day boogeyman and they all seemed too stunned to comprehend what the fuck was going on.

“Reaper!”

Facing forward again, Reaper saw that backup had arrived… with guns. One pushed their way to the front and leveled a rather powerful looking rifle at him. With no arms to protect him, Reaper watched the officer pull the trigger, sights on his head. 

The bullet whizzed through the air and penetrated Reaper’s skull, wetly punching through the bone and rotted brain matter of his head. There was a moment of pain and then a numb feeling as Reaper’s body suddenly exploded into a mass of black mindless smoke.

* * *

When Reaper reformed again, he found himself crammed inside a dusty vent. It took a full minute before he could become aware of his limbs, all thankfully there, before Reaper started to escape. There was some awkward shuffling, broad shoulders almost as wide as the vent, but Reaper pushed his body through and worked his way slowly through the ventilation system. When Reaper came across a grating that lead outside, he kicked it open and ended up falling to the cold and unforgiving ground outside the building that the op had been in, Reaper remembered the back door that he _had_ kicked in for the op he _should_ have been on.

Everything felt numb, like morphine was flowing in his veins instead of his thick, black blood. It took a few moments of lying out on the cold and rain wet ground before Reaper sluggishly lifted his arm to press against the comm device that was still thankfully in his ear.

[Entering Comm Channel: Extra Fuckers]  
[BoogeyMan: Reaper reporting in.]  
[Hack3r5Lyfe: Reaps? D8 where ya at???]  
[BlackWidow: Reaper, you have been MIA for three days.]

Three days. Reaper had been floating in his own limbo for three days. Cursing loudly, making several rats scurry about his feet, Reaper hauled himself off the damned ground and called in a pickup to come grab him from a safe distance away and ended up reporting in less than two hours later.

They, of course, wanted to know what was wrong with their most valuable asset, their prized freakshow and monster. But Reaper had no words, no way of explaining what had happened to him. At least nothing that would not result them in sending him to be experimented on by Moira and Reaper did all that he could to avoid the woman these days. Ever since her hand in killing Gabriel Reyes, Reaper had avoided her like the plague, fear of how much more she could fuck him up than she already. Reaper believed in monsters, hell he was one, but the self proclaimed modern day boogeyman was fearful of how much farther he could fall from humanity if Moira dug those diseased claws of hers into him again.

For now, Reaper bullshit his way through and said that he fucked the mission up. Got shot in the head and panicked, that was all. They seemed to accept it, too fearful to reprehend him, especially if he survived a gunshot to the head. They gave him a light smack on the wrists and sent him onto his way. Moira was reportedly disappointed that Reaper was not getting tossed on her table.

A few days later, Reaper had another attack.

There was a scuffle with a few of those Overwatch heroes. Widowmaker and he had been traveling through the desert to meet up with an information broker for one of their missions. A few hours in and they had encountered the group doing some sort of practice, based on the bullet and flame scorched and marked rocks around them. Widowmaker had to slam on the brakes to not just run one over, though it had been more jerk reaction rather then not wanting to kill one of them with a car.

There was some girl in a mech-suit, short, possibly Korean, thankfully out of the mech. A short man with heavy prosthetic legs and dreadlocks and carrying what looked like a speaker on a gun. There was a tall and scrawny man armed to the teeth with explosives, skin singed and hair actually on fire. A giant man with a hog mask, bearing a deadly hook in one hand and a large gun in the other. Then of course the achingly familiar face of Reinhardt.

Widowmaker yanked her sniper rifle out from underneath her seat, and shot an explosive hanging off a bandoleer on the tallest man’s chest, creating a diversion as they jumped out of the car. Reaper took cover behind a rock to re-materialize his guns.

While Widowmaker flung herself from towering desert rock to towering desert rock, she took potshots at the so called heroes, keeping their attention scrambled as he materialized his shotguns. When their heavy weights lay in his hands, Reaper had barely a chance to stand up and face his enemies when his left leg faded away into black smoke. Not prepared for the sudden loss of support, he collapsed to the ground where the entire left side of his body impacted and vanished into black smoke.

There was something about the right side of his mind suddenly reeling from the loss of the left as his right arm failed to push against the ground, as though he were stuck in it, that felt like it should have been extremely mentally damaging, but it just made Reaper think. It made Reaper think about how Gabriel Reyes’ cells had done something like this in a human way, realizing that the SEP super soldier serum had not taken as he thought and was unraveling the man like a thing of yarn. Gabriel Reyes’ cells had started rapidly decaying and breaking apart as that super soldier serum broke down on a molecular level. Maybe the same was happening to Reaper? Maybe whatever the hell Moira had done to Gabriel to stabilize him was now breaking Reaper apart, unable to fix what the SEP had done to Gabriel that now affected him.

Then of course, Reaper completely broke apart and he thought nothing.

* * *

When Reaper rematerialized again, he found himself in the shade of a cave made from fallen desert rocks.

[Comm Channel: Where the Fuck is Reaper???]  
[Boogeyman: Reaper, reporting in.]  
[BlackWidow: Reaper, you have been MIA for a week! Talon thinks you’ve deserted!]  
[Hack3r5Lyfe: Reaps, give me five minutes and I can have a transport to you in fifteen]  
[Boogeyman: Widowmaker, have the doctor ready for me but not Moira, there is something seriously wrong.]

There was... and Reaper had to admit it at this point. Losing control of his phase shifting and disintegrating unwittingly was unusual and concerning. Truthfully he had always had some decent control of the phase shifting, even right after he had gotten the ability. For him to suddenly lose control…

Was Reaper finally dying? Was his death to fall apart into black smoke and forever be in limbo, a mindless mass of whatever he was now?

The thought terrified him, even after years of personifying death itself.

When Reaper reported back in about two hours to some generic Talon doctor, he was subjected to numerous medical exams. CAT scan, blood tests, X-Rays, tissue samples, bone samples, pumped his stomach, gave him a blood transfusion, shoved a camera down his throat, examined his eyes and finally injected him with several drugs that they refused to disclose the name of. After several hours of pretty much every medical exam known to man being performed on him, a doctor came in to inform him of the results.

“Your cells are decaying faster than they can regenerate,” A faceless doctor in a pristine and crisp white coat said without thought, without emotion or care for his well being. “Most of your veins are clogged with dead blood cells, I’m surprised something has not just fallen off or felt off. Your skin is also drying out, as I’m sure you’ve noticed the cracking. I also noticed that your organs are visible straining as parts of them die or simply shut down.”

Reaper looked at his clasped hands, his gnarled and scar ridden hands that had done so much, felt so much and held so many things. After becoming Reaper, the tips of his fingers had gone black and his nails had hardened long grey claws, it was why he wore the metal tipped gauntlets, to house his new talons that just seemed to further his monster persona. Now the edges of his death tinted hands were cracking where the skin had dried out and was probably going to fall away in strips of dried out and dead tissue.

“You’re dying Mr. Reaper, I know no other way of putting it,” The doctor said, as though he was telling him that they were off for tea next week. “I give you six months at most, and that’s if we can find something to help you. If we can’t? Maybe four months, maybe.”

Reaper decided that he needed some time alone.

* * *

It was not hard for Reaper to go off the grid, not when he was dead to the world and not exactly a model employee in Talon’s ranks and they had no way of tracking him if he wanted to vanish. Unlike Sombra who had enough tech jammed in her that someone could track her if she not ‘going native’, unlike Widowmaker that was mentally trained to stay on base and actually had a tracker installed in the base of her skull, or Akande who stayed on base because he pretty much ran Talon financially. Reaper was free to come and go, much like a wraith or a shadow, death itself.

Despite the complete lack in trust he had about his phase shifting, Reaper traveled in his wraith form away from the Talon base, easily clearing miles upon miles upon miles of raw nature that hide their base, further and further away like a shadow on the ground being unseen by humanity until he was in a new area and even then he kept floating away, a black stain on the mortal plane. Going and going until Reaper found himself a nice cliff to sit on the edge of, a deep plummet promising death to those that were fool enough to fall.

It was night time when he sat down tiredly, so the moon and stars were over head. Underneath such soft light, he figured it was fine and pulled away his hood and pulled his mask free from his face. A stray curl fell over his brow and his, strangely shaking, hands brushed everything back into place. When had it grown out so long? Probably since he stopped caring about his nightmarish appearance and the last time he cared about that was...

Was…

...was…

…Since before his re-birth as Reaper from the death of Gabriel Reyes, definitely before that because after that he was too grotesque to sanely even want to exert the thought of even trying. Since before the slow and painful fall of Blackwatch and Overwatch, definity before that because he had been too stressed in those days to really give a fuck what he looked like, thus the heavy bags under his eyes constantly. Since before his break up with...

…since Jack Morrison had been so brutally cut from his life.

God damn it, it may not have been his memories and his feelings but Reaper missed Jack, even after all these years.

“ _Stupid white boy,_ ” Reaper rasped to himself, “ _Quit hounding my thoughts. Their mine, not his._ ”

It had been okay at first, thinking that Jack was dead after Reaper realized that he had been born from the shell and death of Gabriel Reyes. Reaper had moved on, the memories that were not his to focus on were not his and he put them to rest and the feelings that came with them. Really… Reaper had moved on. But then Jack showed up as some dumb anti-hero getup and calling himself Soldier 76. Oh how Reaper had raged and felt like a torn and worn rag when he had found out that Jack was alive, even if that bastard claimed that ‘Jack Morrison was dead’.

These feelings and thoughts were not his own, but still… some part of Reaper still carried on a little bit of Gabriel Reyes and to hear that this man that Gabriel had shared so much with… the SEP program, the Omnic Crisis, the formation of Overwatch and then their promotions. Despite their fight before their respective deaths, Gabriel Reyes still cared deeply for Jack Morrison, former friend, former war buddy, former lover… and that meant even if Reaper hated it, he cared too. Oh god how he cared…

“ _Don’t think about it, Reaper, don’t think about it,_ ” Reaper scolded himself when he felt the tell tale burn of his eyes, burying his face in his hands despite the rough and dried skin scrubbing against his face in such an awful way.

But Reaper could not help himself. How could he not think about Gabriel Reyes’ prior relationship with Jack, what could it have been if… things had gone differently?

“ _I don’t want to do this anymore, Jack,_ ” Reaper said to the air around him, leaning forward dangerously over the edge, “ _I’m too old, in too much pain and not living for much besides old thoughts and feelings that aren’t even mine… but I guess I don’t have to deal with this much longer, do I, huh? I’m dying, Jack… I’m dying_.”

Reaper wondered if Jack missed Gabriel Reyes as much as Reaper missed the old strike commander in turn? Probably not, Reaper thought bitterly, they had parted on such shitty terms and now tried to kill each other the second they laid eyes on one another. Reaper was only held together by Gabriel Reyes’ lingering feelings of raw fury, need for revenge and hatred that he had felt in his violent death that had been Reaper’s violent birth. The bitterness about the unfair death, the nasty fight between Reyes and Morrison just shy seconds before, how Reyes was rightfully angry at the setup that someone was pining on him for Blackwatch’s and Overwatch’s falls.

_He was alone..._

Something felt off about his waist and before Reaper could lean back, most of his lower abdomen, waist and hips disintegrated into black smoke and he was falling over the ledge, legs plummeting after him, the air whipping around him as Reaper plummeted like a fallen angel to kiss the earth like a punch.

There was no screaming, there was no crying, no pleading.

Reaper was too tired.

As he fell, more of his body started disintegrating, rapidly.

Reaper was too tired and already dying, so who gave a damn?

First went his legs and then his upper abdomen, arms and shoulders until he was mostly a black smear in the air.

No one gave a damn if Reaper died from this, not a single goddamn soul, because who cared if the big, bad Reaper suddenly stopped stalking the shadows? Who cared if the boogeyman suddenly vanished without a trace? Who gave a damn if the actual personification of death himself suddenly died because he accidently fell off a cliff?

His head disintegrated into the black smoke cloud.

_b >NOT A DAMNED SOUL ON THIS PLANET!_

Reaper must have impacted the ground, because some time later Reaper woke to the sun shining through the trees on his sprawled out body on the foliage at the base of the cliff. When he sat up, he felt sore and bruised all over, but not enough to keep him from touching the thankfully intact comm device.

[Comm Channel: Reaper Houdini]  
[Hack3r5Lyfe: Paaaaapppiiiiiiiiiii]  
[Boogeyman: What?]  
[Hack3r5lyfe: You’ve been gone five days, are you okay??? (　ﾟДﾟ)＜!!]  
[Boogeyman: I fell off a cliff]  
[Hack3r5Lyfe: ¿Qué mierda?]  
[Boogeyman: I’m fine, Sombra, I’ll be back on base in a few hours.]  
[Hack3r5Lyfe: I’m worried Reapsi, r u really okay????]  
[Boogeyman: No, we both know this, Sombra.]

Getting up, with some difficulty as ever bone ached and groaned within him, Reaper forced himself up and just started walking. Reaper would walk until his feet bled because not a damned soul would care either way.

Four to six months huh? Death of a modern day boogeyman, it should have been the name of his biography.

* * *

Ana has once called Gabriel Reyes ‘the human pillow’. Mostly because when Gabriel crashed on a couch somewhere, his just as tired friends would gravitate towards him and usually end up curled against him or flop on top of him. From young little Fareeha curling up in a ball on his chest, to Jack flopping on him and snuggling up to him, to McCree using his boney elbows to make room and sticking those cowboy boot funky feet by his head and sometimes Ana stretching out on his legs and letting her legs hang over the armrest. Gabriel Reyes had been the ‘human pillow’ for years until after Blackwatch was started and he started sleeping a lot less and literally crashing in his locked office.

Ana has said for years it was because Gabriel was a dead to the world when he slept and because everyone knew that he would gruff and huff but not truly mind in the end. As much as he did not want to admit, she was right. Gabriel had once been a neigh comatose sleeper and while he may have played irritated, he never minded waking to find someone had joined him in taking a nap. They had needed it the first few years and after that… he had needed the alone time.

Even when Reyes died and Reaper had been born from what was left of him, Reaper still sometimes found Widowmaker or Sombra lounging against him if he happened to actually fall asleep somewhere. Widowmaker would always sit back to back with him, rifle in hand or close to her hip, her breath deathly quiet or sometimes humming some undoubtedly French tune so quietly that it would have been easy to miss if she were not so close. Sometimes Sombra would crash, always changing how she ended up, sometimes pressed flush against his side, sometimes her legs draped across his lap, sometimes half propped up against his side. Most of the time, the hacker was awake and tapping away on the screens she could pull up, one or two times she was clocked out and snoring away.

When Reaper got back to base, Widowmaker and Sombra immediately found him sitting by his lonesome one the roof off one of the outcropping buildings. Widowmaker warned him of their presence when an elbow dug into his back and made him sit up straight, before her slim back pressed against his. Sombra brazenly laid herself out between his legs, folding her arms over his thighs and pulling out her screens.

For awhile they kept him silent company, something that Reaper greatly appreciated but also hardly noticed since he had been dissociating since he had gotten back and just went back to it when the two had settled.

“Did that no good doctor tell you anything?” Widowmaker eventually asked.

“ _...bad news,_ ” Reaper rasped.

“What did they say, Reaps?” Sombra asked, looking up at him.

“ _Nothing you need to worry about,_ ” He sighed.

“We need to know if we need to cover you in battle, Reaper,” Widowmaker said without any real bite.

“ _It’ll cause more problems than it solves_ ,” Reaper sighed louder.

They left it at that, thankfully, knowing that prodding him only made him lash out both verbally and physically. No need to bother him with the problems he was already dealing with.

Reaper watched Sombra’s screen for a time, idly reading what he could catch before Sombra killed it and pulled up another. He caught some of the hurried Spanish, the English, but most everything else he could not decipher. He wondered if the tech welded to Sombra’s head allowed her to easily be fluent in several dozen languages if not all of them. Would not be too far out of reach, considering the burning ambition that fueled the woman.

“Want to spy on someone, Reaps?” Sombra asked with a cheeky grin, having noticed his staring.

“ _No, but thanks,_ ” He rumbled.

“I heard… ‘please show me my ex-boyfriend’,” Sombra giggled already shuffling her screens around a bit before finding the one she was looking for. Digging her nails into the corners, she blew up the screen until he saw what looked like a video feed showing Jack practically stalking around the perimeter of some building. The red visor the old soldier wore was lit up.

“Salty old white man spotted,” Sombra giggled, using the tips of her nails to shift the screen to follow Morrison.

“Hmm,” Widowmaker hummed by his ear, having taken to spying over his shoulder while using his shoulders as armrests, “I always did wonder why he wore that visor.”

 _Because he’s more or less blind without it,_ Reaper thought bitterly.

The explosion had done that, the light from the blast had done that to Jack and those pretty blue eyes. From what Reaper had gathered, Jack had gone into hiding with his injuries and done his own first aid on himself shortly after the explosion. The scars set in and robbed Jack of vision that surgeries could have restored if he were not a stubborn asshole. Now the visor served as Jack’s eyes, connected to his brain to provide the visual input directly while skipping over the useless orbs in Jack’s skull.

_Jump starting his heart back from death had put Gabriel through worse pain than any bullet or that Omnic that nearly took off his face and left sweeping scars instead. One moment his body stiff with death, torn to bloody pieces from the bomb explosion, the next? The creature that was born from the husk of Gabriel Reyes was screaming and yelling, smoke escaping him in waves unlike the pathetic wisps that had come off of Reyes._

_It took awhile to realize that whatever Moria did to his DNA, to Gabriel Reyes’ DNA, to stabilise it when it had started coming apart was to blame for Reaper’s birth. The nanites that once worked so hard to keep his DNA and rapidly declining health together had seemingly gone mad with Gabriel’s violent death. Now they moved everything about his body like a Lovecraftian wet dream, making him into Reaper, a monster, a terror, a nightmare, a modern day boogeyman._

_Knowledge of Jack had come later, when Reaper was reeling from his sudden existence. Dead, than not dead, ripping that mask off once had told him all that Reaper needed to know..._

“Who’s that?” Sombra suddenly asked, jarring him from his memories.

Jesse McCree came into view and approached Jack. Reaper quickly swiped his clawed fingers through the screen, forcibly deleting it.

“ _ **No one,**_ ” He growled like the feral wraith that he was.

Reaper had protected Jesse’s identity from everyone, especially Sombra, for years, to protect his pseudo-son that he had done so much for. Not to mention Jesse was damned good at remaining hidden all on his own. Reaper- Gabriel… Gabriel had gave up on Overwatch, Blackwatch, on the world, on a lot of things in the years before his death but he never gave up on Jesse. Reaper was not Gabriel, but the extremely strong parental instincts that Gabriel had had for Jesse had carried over to him and even to this day, Reaper felt the strong need to look out for Jesse.

There was a reason that he always missed the gunslinger in battle.

* * *

Reaper nearly gave Sombra a heart attack later that evening.

It was a partial attack that lead into a full attack, but Reaper had not bothered to try and force himself together. Both arms and fallen off, most of his left bicep already a puddle of black smoke and his right elbow only a small trail of black smoke. Most of his chest cavity had hallowed out and black smoke lazily pooled underneath of him and darkened the air around him. Reaper’s disembodied head was resting in the crook of his arm.

Despite his head being cut off from oxygen and his spinal cord, his eyes still managed to roll to her as she strolled into the room.

“RrrrreeeeeaaaaaAPPPPPP!” She shrieked.

Sombra got down and picked up his disembodied head, lazily dripping black smoke. Reaper’s eyelids blinked slowly as Sombra stuttered out a butchery of English and Spanish as she looked at his broken body like she was trying to figure out a thousand piece puzzle lock bomb. After a moment she placed his head atop his torso and pressed the half melted stump of his neck to oozing wound of his neck. Most of his neck melted away already and he had found out ages ago that you could not just force the pieces together.

After failing to make his head stick, she left Reaper’s head lying by his neck stump before fleeing the room in a hurry.

Reaper felt like he should have tried to pull himself together… but he was tired. Reaper just wanted to sleep for the next week, or month, or year or… just forever. That sounded right, Reaper wanted to sleep forever. Leave Reaper on his floor, slowly disintegrating until he was mindless black smoke until he was nothing more, such a lame death would only fit his sins.

Death of the new age boogeyman…

Sombra came rushing in with a nano-booster, popping the top and holding it over him. She held it over him fruitlessly for almost half an hour, gnawing her lower lip until the nano-booster emptied itself on Reaper to no avail. With the telltale click, she violently shook the damn thing, like she could make it produce more healing power, before cursing its mother and throwing it across the room.

If Reaper could have sighed, he would have. Instead his eyelids slid shit and he focused with all his strength and concentration on pulling himself together, pulling every broke free atom and pulling it in, pulling all the black smoke towards him, condensing it, solidifying it, molding it and shaping it back into his death colored flesh. It was harder than before, the atoms not listening to him at first before caving reluctantly. Sombra watched as he slowly brought himself back together.

When he had finally pieced each loose atom to his broken apart body, he found his body sprawled out on the floor and mostly numb but Sombra looked so happy to see him together.

“Reaps, are you okay?” She asked, worried, desperately so. Despite everything, Reaper supposed that himself and Sombra were friends. They shared a lot and unlike everyone else, Sombra empathized with him instead of fearing or hating him. And they both shared a burning hatred for Talon and wanted to watch it burn.

“ _I’m not answering that_ ” He grunted, though without bite or force and more with… tiredness.

It took several tries, but Reaper sat up and managed to throw an arm over a stool to help him get up to his feet. Reaper felt Sombra’s arms on his sides, lending him some or her strength as he took the laborious task of standing up. When he got up, Sombra ducked underneath his right arm and wedged herself underneath, giving him something to lean against. Grunting, he let her help him walk out of the room.

“…I didn’t make you mad earlier? Stress you out?” Sombra asked as they wobbled along to the doctor’s.

“ _Hmm_?”

“Showing you that crusty old man? I was joking about the ‘ex-boyfriend’ bit,” Sombra explained, “It was kinda dickish of me and I’d feel bad if it messed you up, Reaps.”

“ _You weren’t wrong,_ ” Reaper sighed sadly.

“Wow, really? Didn’t think you’d be into white boys, Reaps,” Sombra said, making them stop so she could adjust herself to support more of his weight.

“ _He was cute once,_ ” He snorted and then let out a rattling depressed sigh, “ _Then… everything about us just got ugly._ ”

“…Sorry, Reaps,” Sombra said quietly.

“ _Don’t be, it’s not your fault it went sour_.”

* * *

A simple mission with Sombra, executed it just fine, arms fell off in the escape vehicle. Solo mission to assassinate a target, front of torso broke apart, gave him an excellent diversion to blast the target’s face off with a single shotgun round, mission with Widowmaker to kill a few people, took two out, head fell off and the rest quickly followed but Widowmaker finished it off before leaving a hidden SOS signal for him to find.

The attacks were coming more frequently and more powerfully each time.

 _I don’t want to do this anymore,_ haunted Reaper’s mind.

It only got worse as Gabriel’s mistakes haunted Reaper’s mind as his death approaches. Every wrong word, every person that Gabriel had made mad or sad, every decision that blew up in Gabriel’s face. Reaper’s thought’s dwelled about all the times Gabriel had lost his temper and snapped, or all the times that Gabriel had been sad and pushed everyone away, he thought about all the little failures that happened in Gabriel’s life, all thought about until every little failure was life crushing and the life crushing ones? Made Reaper’s chest and head hurt just thinking about them.

Reaper often disassociated when he was not on a mission, staring for hours at a wall as his body fell apart with no concentration. Often Reaper had to force himself back together for the next mission, having milled away what few hours he had to himself, just spent whittling away from his broken mind and broken body. Hours just gone into the void, never to be reclaimed again.

_I don’t want to do this anymore…_

Sombra would sometimes track him down, offer to show him a feed from the Overwatch base that happened to have Jack on it. Honestly, thinking about Jack just made it worse. Made Reaper think of all the mistakes that Reyes made with Jack before their relationship just… literally blew up.

_I don’t want to do this anymore._

Reaper’s full attacks were lasting upwards of two weeks. Talon had given up on trying to keep tabs on him and just gave him what work that they could when he eventually showed up. He felt like a fuck up, a mess, a worthless human being if he could be considered human. Reaper made nothing but mistakes, he did nothing but fuck up and destroy his life. Fuck up, screw up, monster, betrayer, liar, life thief, abomination.

_I don’t want to do this anymore!_

Medication? What would work on his screw up body? Everything burned right through his immune system and when he broke apart he lost anything that might have lingered in the blood. No drug could help him, no drug could soothe him, and no drug could make him blissfully unaware of the world around him. Why Reaper never went to abusing them. Gabriel Reyes thought about it as his DNA deteriorated and put him in god awful and frequent chronic pain, but chose not to put himself in a hot seat, the people setting him up already did that for him, it made him turn to Moira instead.

_I DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE!_

If Reaper managed to get some sleep, he found himself sleep walking, trailing all over the Talon headquarters, going here and there and pretty much just wandering in his sleep. Sometimes he found himself outside, sometimes he found himself far away from the base. Sometimes he would not wander far, sometimes he would, but he just… wandered as soon as his eyes closed. Sometimes Sombra or Widowmaker would wake him up, having found him, one time when he was outside a bird’s song snapped him awake.

_…I don’t want to do this anymore…_

One night… Reaper wandered and he wandered and he wandered and wandered… far away from Talon grounds, a black smear to anyone that happened to see him.

There were reports of something like a wraith mindlessly floating through the country, people that screamed in terror when they saw something that could have only been supernatural, a few that thought it was Reaper correctly, a few that thought it was death itself out to stalk their next prey. Talon was alerted at some point of Reaper’s disappearance and of the mysterious wraith that was floating aimless out there in the world, but the wraith could not be tracked down, vanishing into thin air and reappearing into existence at seemingly random intervals.

So Reaper drifted as he slept… far away… towards some place familiar…

* * *

“Angela, report.”

Angela sighed deeply, tapping her earpiece irritably to let them know that she could hear them. It would shut them up for a moment and leave her to try and calm down after the fight. This was not a team and they did not even try and act like they should be a team and she was put one healer with a bunch of bullet happy--

She sighed again.

Sitting down on a crate in the warehouse that they had just cleared out of Los Muertos gang members, she tugged at her heels before just yanking them off. Honestly, she really should have thought practicality over appearances despite people breathing down her neck to appear as that heavenly angel that people wanted her to be. Between her heels and her molded chest plate, she was left feeling gross and uncomfortable and sore after each battle or fight. She made a note to put her foot down and finally make alterations to her Valkyrie suit when they got back. Torbjorn would be more than happy to help her make a flat chest piece, the man was always one for practical over appearances--

“Angela.”

She tapped her ear piece twice. Radio silence.

Sighing louder, she stretched her legs until her aching feet and joints popped and stretched, already starting a mental checklist of what she would need to do when she got back. Armor modifications, Jesse’s prosthetic arm had been harmed in the fight and she would likely need to hunt him down to check on it and his flesh stump. Then… her E-pellet needed to be changed soon, so she ought to do that while she thought about it. After that… a long nap was in order.

Grumbling, Angela messaged her feet and cursed the mother of whoever invented high heels before picking them up and figuring that she ought to do what she had intended to do and sweep the area.

The Los Muertos gang members had been cagey and spooked when they had arrived, muttering something about a ‘ghost’ if Angela’s extremely rusty Spanish that she had learned from listening to Jesse and Gabriel had been anything to go by. They were supposed to be cozy in their little drug den, they were supposed to be doing rought the clock deals. But instead they found everyone on the first floor and muttering and scared. It had been too easy to put down opposition and handcuff everyone for local law enforcement to arrest later.

What ghost has them spooked enough to do something like cowering all together on one floor…

Angela poked around a bit but found nothing but their drug making equipment, which she sabotaged, and drug shipments, thrown onto the floor. Nothing really stuck out until she found an oil like trail that stained the walls from one window. She thought at first that perhaps it was just oil leaking from outside, but looking closer she realized that it was not oil and that it looked more like something oozing the black stuff had slipped in from the window. Frowning, she followed the trail of black stuff, gummy and tacky like older glue, all the way to a very dark corner of the floor.

In the corner, something dark was wheezing and hunched over.

“Hello? Do you need medical assistance?” Angela called.

Holding onto her staff, she activated it to get it to start glowing enough to see--

Reaper clutched his sides as inky blackness dripped from where dark dust seemed to escaping from his skin and drifting into the air. He barely lifted his head to look at her as she calmly drew her pistol and aimed it at his head. Reaper did fall heavily onto his side, wheezing and wetly coughing, watching her as she aimed. She thought that Reaper would attack her, lash out, say or so something to express anger, sadness, rage, madness or something…

Instead a rattle escaped his maw and he relaxed… like in an instant he had made peace with being shot and killed and was waiting for it.

That…. Wasn’t right.

Angela gripped her pistol.

Not right at all.

* * *

“Need help with your equipment case, Angie?” Jesse asked as she tugged the heavy rolling case off of the plane with a grunt.

“No, no,” She grunted as it finally rolled down the ramp. Thankfully the contents did not make a noise like she feared. “The mission was tiring is all. You need to visit me when I decontaminate everything and get everything set up again downstairs. Let’s say, after dinner?”

“Yes ma’am,” Jesse smiled sheepishly, rubbing his arm.

“Thank you, Jesse,” Angela smiled, “Now I need to get this taken care of because I want a hot shower, a hot meal and to have my comfy slip on shoes.”

“Mindful of the ground without your shoes, Angie,” Jesse chuckled after her as she started towards her office. Angela’s main clinic was on the base floor of the base, but her equipment and where she did the bulk of her work was in her office in the lower floors. Her case rolled behind her as she took the elevator down to said office, humming quietly.

The most important thing was that there were no cameras in her office. Winston respected that her work, often involving the privacy of other operatives, needed the privacy and thus Athena had no cameras or auditory sensors anywhere near her office, which was would perfectly for the biggest fucking mistake she was about to make in a long time.

Rolling her case into her office, she took it over to the corner and to a curtained off area, pulling the curtain close around a bed before popping open the case and looking at her guest.

Laying squished up, in a shallow puddle of what Angela assumed was his blood, Reaper lifted his mask up to look at her, a clawed hand lifting slowly to protect his face and block out the sudden light. Very carefully, she dipped her hand into the crate, offering her hand.

“My apologies for the rough ride here, Reaper,” Angela said as those clawed fingers wrapped around her wrist and used it to lift himself up. Blood, that was what it was disturbingly, dripped down him like black rain as he stood to full height, blearily looking around. “Or should I say, Gabriel?”

The mask was gone, ripped off of his face when Reaper has passed out after Angela’s curiosity had gotten the better of her. Underneath had been such a horror show of teeth, eyes and mouths but the basic shape? The basic features underneath all of it? Was Gabriel Reyes and well… Angela was a woman that made a lot of mistake in her life because of curiosity, but she hoped that this one would lead to her bringing a friend back from the dead.

Gabriel’s eyes, all of them all over his cheeks and forehead, opened wide and looked at her, fingers coming to touch his face and realizing that the mask was gone. A strangled noise escaped from his many fang filled maw.

“But I intend to find out what happened to you and possibly reverse it,” Angela said as she pulled Gabriel and forced him to step out of the case or fall. Black blood splashed on her floor as his heavy armored boots hit the ground and the man wobbled on his feet. “And now, you have no choice. If you leave this office, Athena will be alerted to your presence and you will face the wrath of both her and all Overwatch operatives.”

Gabriel’s eyes opened further and a unknown sound escaped him.

“However, if you stay, I will make sure that I do all that I can for you and that if anyone were to find out about you, that you will not be harmed.”

“... _When did you get so fucking evil?_ ” Gabriel rasped.

“Not evil, just better at dealing with stubborn old men like yourself, Gabriel,” Angela said firmly, “Now I need you to remove that ridiculous getup, wash off in the medical shower and get dressed in scrubs. I will need samples, need to run tests and other such things and all that leather, belts and metal will get in the way.”

“ _What makes you think that you can fix this, Angela?_ ”

“I have determination and a will to try, and that’s all I need,” Angela said firmly, “Now, please hop to it.”


	2. A long and Hard Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Body horror, language, blood, suicidal thoughts/actions/idealization, mentioned faceless character death, mentioned background budding mchanzo, mentioned background polycule Reinhardt/Ana/Torbjorn/Ingrid
> 
> Let's begin that hard journey, with an unwilling creature that was once a man, a mother that has lost so much, a woman lost to time and an old soldier that just wants his husband back

“Subject: Gabriel Reyes, gender: male, height: six feet and two inches or one point nine meters, weight: 215 pounds or 97 and a half kilograms. Status: Dead, special case. Addendum to last note. Gabriel Reyes, though having all typical signs of a dead man, continuous to function and operate as though alive. Brain signals still go from the brain to the limbs and move them as any living creature. Gabriel Reyes does not need to breathe in to bring oxygen into his system but appears to do it out of habit. Subject also does not appear to have a heartbeat or much organ activity. Note, doctor made note that some organs appear to actually be dead and partially rotten and most contaminated with the rotted blood still in Reyes’ viens. Closer examination of blood has also revealed the presence of nanites, but most of them appear inactive… mmm, I wonder if the key to Gabriel Reyes’ recovery is re-activating these nanites?”

“ _You don’t know jack shit about nanites, Angela, and I’m not Gabriel Reyes_ ” Reaper sighed, arms folded stubbornly over his chest as he glowered at the ceiling. His legs were folded too, the soft material of the generic sweats that Angela handed over only further reminding him of his situation.

“Subject still conveys several identity issues, refusing to acknowledge that he is, in fact, Gabriel Reyes and not this Reaper fool,” Angela snapped before pressing the ‘stop recording’ button on her holo-computer, hard swiveling in her chair to glare at him, arms crossed over her chest. “Good morning, Gabriel.”

“ _That’s. Not. My. Fucking. Name,_ ” Reaper glowered, craning his head and glaring at the doctor.

“It _is_ your name, this guise of yours _is not_ you, Gabriel,” Angela sighed, “And it is going to be one of several things I attempt to help you with.”

“ _I really don’t see how you can help me, Angela_ ” Reaper snapped.

“Oh? Then feel free to leave, Gabriel,” Angela said, cocking an eyebrow.

Reaper paused. He could leave, he could leave right now but-- how? Wraith Forming meant an attack and that would only further Angela’s case to help him if he did that while fully conscious. Reaper could just get up and walk out but as Angela had said… Athena was just outside the hallway and after that stunt where he had also nuked her… she would not be kind. Not to mention, Angela had noted off several people that had rejoined Overwatch to Reaper and among them were people that would would rather shoot him dead then see him better, healthy and whole.

Reaper settled heavily on the bed.

At least Angela had enough decency to not appear smug, turning back to her computer to start furiously typing notes out. At times she would take one of the several little sample jars, little things that she had scrapped out of the crate that she had stuffed him in to smuggle him onto base. Mostly blood samples but it appeared there was enough tissue to scrap together for a few whole samples. Now Angela had more than enough to study and apparently she was hellbound to figure out what made him tick. To reverse or change what had been done to him...

But what would that mean for him? He was Reaper. Gabriel Reyes was dead and no force on this earth could bring him back. If Reaper was gone then there would be nothing, he would simply cease to exist, there would be… nothing.

“ _If you wanted to kill me, you could have asked Jesse, I’m sure he’d love to put an end to me,_ ” Reaper muttered.

“But I don’t want to kill you, Gabriel,” Angela noted almost absently as she looked at what was apparently a bone marrow sample she had taken. “I want to help you.”

“ _I’m not Gabriel though, I’m Reaper, Gabriel is dead. And that means you want to get rid of Reaper. You would be getting rid of me and you getting rid of me would make me cease to exist and leave nothing._ ”

“You are Gabriel though, not Reaper, Reaper is just a persona that you devised, possibly to deal with the trauma of whatever the explosion did to you and what you’ve done over the past five years,” Angela said. “And I’m sorry if it’s hard for you to accept but you will need to learn to do just that. The sooner you let go of Reaper, the sooner you’ll start the road of recovery, Gabriel.”

It was like talking to Talon higher ups.

* * *

Angela kept him company of a sorts by speaking as she wrote notes, pondered and worked. From what little he understood of the long and complex medical terms and jargon that Angela relayed at chittering speeds because of her enthusiasm, the nanites that had been meant to stabilize his DNA after it started unraveling from the SEP program were not doing that all. Just from watching a few still working nanites in his body, it appeared that they were really weaponizing that instability, giving him the ability to use it to do the things that he could do as Reaper like wraith forming and deconstructing and reconstructing his shotguns to reload them. But they appeared to do some of what Moira had promised that they would do, keeping his body from literally falling apart on him. But now? Now most of them were shut down, floating like black sand in his bloodstream and clogging shit up.

“I wonder if these could be repurposed to first do what they were intended by that… Moira, and then repurposed again to do as they were supposed to do? Restabilize your DNA and perhaps make you human like again, Gabriel?” Angela said as she looked at the blood sample of his.

“ _Not Gabriel,_ ” Reaper protested weakly.

“Though that would bring into question how we restore what you’ve lot, Gabriel,” Angela said, completely skipping over what he had said. “There are parts of your body that have started to decay...I wonder if a concentrated dose of healing from my staff would help kick start things? Perhaps we could regrow some organs, the technology is there though it would take time and a strand of intact DNA source from each organ we would need to replace. But most of your DNA has been scrambled from the destruction and mayhem that the nanites have wrought on you…”

Angela hummed thoughtfully.

“You were right that I really do not know much about nanites, when I was getting my first doctorate they were still considered morally ‘grey’ because while they have been proven to be helpful, they also proved to be hackable to someone with the knowledge. No one wanted machines that their bodies depend on getting hacked. To this day people are still on the fence about them… but I wonder…” Angela stood to slip out of the room, coming back in a moment with her staff.

“I have altered the technology in my staff to also work on inorganic material such as Omnics and can help them just as well in the field as organic people. I wonder…”

Angela aimed the staff at the blood sample of his before gripping. The golden light that the staff normally spilled out came spilling out, aimed at the blood sample. The machinery that powered the staff hummed almost pleasantly as Angela ladened the blood sample with several seconds of healing before cutting the stream. Putting the staff aside, Angela quickly strode over to it to pick up and slide into the microscope that she had been using, almost excitedly peering down at the sample. After a moment of watching, she stood up with a mix of emotions awash on her face.

“Hmm, that did something… not much but something,” Angela turned to him to explain. “That stream reactivated several nanites out of the few hundred in this sample and they began to work again. But most of them seem inactive still. I wonder if I were to use the beam longer term if the results would result in more nanites becoming active? I’ll have to watch this sample just to make sure that it’s long term before I even think about attempting anything on you, we wouldn’t want mass rejection if it only works on smaller samples.”

“ _Mass rejection?_ ” Reaper rasped out.

“They start attacking your body instead, I would imagine?” Angela shrugged, “You’re not like my normal patients, Gabriel so I am flying blind as it is.”

That was not something Reaper liked to think about. Dying was one thing, but being eaten alive by his own body and the stupid fucking things that were supposed to be saving him in the first place. A slow death… no, anything but that. Give him bullets to the head, give him explosions, give him over to fucking Jack for a few rounds to the skull, anything but a slow painful death after all the shit that he had been put through. Do not make him face a painful end to a life that ended like literal shit.

“Now, I need to leave and work in my clinic for awhile,” Angela said, “Please rest.”

“ _Not like I have a choice, doc,_ ” Reaper rasped, watching Angel gather her things before leaving him to stare up at the ceiling with a grime expression set in his face.

* * *

Angela pondered exactly how she was going to deal with Reaper/Gabriel as she sat at her desk and looked over files almost absently while more excitedly poking at the samples she had taken, in her main clinic. If she was successful and managed to bring back Gabriel, there was no way that she could keep that to herself, not from the people that knew and loved him. But then she would have to explain the situation to anyone that Gabriel and how would she explain bringing a terrorist on base?

Idly tapping her pen against her paper, Angela looked over a sample of blood that she had taken, though it was more like thick and chunky black gel than blood. Perhaps if she split the sample she could test long term healing and see if Gabriel’s nanites could be revived and still have untainted blood to study, because something told Angela that trying to strip away Reaper from Gabriel would not be so straightforward as extended use of her staff.

“Angela?”

Angela looked up too see Ana standing in her clinic doorway, looking at her worriedly.

“Yes, Ana?” Angela said, putting the blood sample aside.

“I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time?”

“Of course, please come in.”

The old coffee machine still worked in her office, though Angela preferred to use the newer and less prone to loud clanking machine in the base’s kitchen. Still, worked well enough for her needs, getting two hot cups for herself and Ana to have as they sat at Angela’s desk to speak, Ana stirring in some sugar from Angela’s drawer of coffee things and Angela simply giving her drink a few puffs to cool before drinking. Angela always liked her coffee black. They sat in silence for awhile, drinking their respective coffees and letting the silence hang heavy on them.

“So…” Ana started, “Has Jack seen you, lately?”

“Not really. He speaks little to anyone on base, hardly stays around anyone longer than a few minutes,” Angela sighed, fiddling with her cup. “He’s… distant.”

“Yes, even with me,” Ana sighed, placing her cup down, “...You should know that we have been trying to track down Reaper.”

“How is that going?” Angela asked, schooling her face.

“That is what I wanted to talk to you about… we believe that… I can’t lie to you, Angela. We have found out that Reaper is Gabriel Reyes. He looks… he looks horrifying Angela it was so horrible. He took his mask off and there were…”

 _Too many eyes and too many teeth, too many mouths. Like a Lovecraft monster made by the man himself._ Angela thought bitterly, thinking of how horrified she had been when she had ripped Reaper’s mask off and found Gabriel Reyes’ fucked up face underneath.

“I can’t… I can’t,” Ana sighed. “But we want to hunt him down, try and figure out what happened. To him. To Blackwatch. To Overwatch. There are so many unanswered questions. Too many lives that went up into smoke over those questions, over the motives and means of other people. There are too many missing pieces and we… we would really like to get this one back.”

“...” Angela rolled a pen on her desk.

“Well, I’ve taken enough of your time,” Ana said, pushing her cup away from her. “My thanks for taking the time to speak with me.”

“...I have him,” Angela spat out.

“I’m sorry?”

Angela stood and started walking. An undeniable rush was buzzing up and down her spine and hearing Ana’s steps behind just stoked it and kept that adrenaline rushing through her veins. The soft patter of her own slip-ons and the sound sounds of Ana’s boots in the quiet halls, uninterrupted as they walked, Angela leading Ana by the curiosity of it all, like a thin thread around their fingers.

Down the stairs, all the way down, to the very bottom floor where Athena’s omnipotent surveillance of the base was nonexistence ‘for the privacy’ of other Overwatch members. No eyes and no ears of the goddess of knowledge to listen as Angela revealed to Ana either one of her greatest deeds in her life life or one of the biggest mistakes known to mankind. The sound sounds of their footsteps made Angela’s heart beat faster and faster as she let Ana in and closed the door behind them.

“Who… do you have, Angela?” Ana asked, sounding almost scared.

Angela walked over to the only curtained off bed and pulled it away. Gabriel blinked owlishly at her before flinching at the sight of Ana.

“You… you have!” Ana gasped.

“I found him and brought him here…” Angela said, “I’m going to help him.”

“... I want to help,” Ana said, steeling herself. “I want to help Gabriel.”

“Then help me figure out what is wrong with him. His biology is nothing like I’ve ever seen and I only have a few vague ideas of… just how to ‘patch’ this. I need minds to help me figure out to ‘cure’ this, or at least configure it until he’s almost human like again,” Angela sighed.

“ _I’m not Gabriel,_ ” Reaper rasped weakly before coughing.

A hand barely caught a wad of black gunk that looked more like cancer and tar than anything that could come out of a human. Reaper rasped and wheezed as Angela went to his side, gently setting a hand on his shoulder and making him tilt in a way that Ana could only assume would making the cougher better/easier. When it eased, Reaper had a handful of thick, tar like darkness and looked worse off than before. Ana swore that there was a tooth in his hand.

“See?” Angela pointed out.

“I do see and I want to help,” Ana said. 

“The best I have is that he’s currently made of approximately 40% nanites. That is something I just don’t know, but I might have a lead on a specialist,” Angela said, “But besides that? This might as well be fiction.”

"Fiction or not, it's happening now, my dear," Ana said before turning her gaze to Gabriel, a hard and firm look about her. "I will be helping you, Gabe. I want to help you."

" _I'm Reaper and you can't help me,_ " Reaper rasped, brandishing a mouth full of shark teeth. All the eyes on his forehead and cheeks were squinting in a way that the two women assumed would mean rage if they had their own brows to crinkle to complete the look. " _Gabriel died on the day the base blew and I was born from his death. I am nothing but rage, hatred, regret and sorrow. I am a creature beyond the existence of this plane and you can do nothing to help me. And you certainly cannot bring a dead man back, I doubt he would anyway._ "

"He has quite the number of psychological problems," Angela said, passing right over what Gabriel had said, much to the man's rising anger. If Gabriel was to be cured, than his identity issues were not to be indulged but instead combated at every turn. "I'm assuming to deal with what happened before and after the explosion."

"That would make sense," Ana hummed thoughtfully. "You can heal the wounds on his body, but what are we going to do about the ones on his mind?"

"That I'm not sure about," Angela sighed, looking sideways at a slowly steaming Gabriel. "He would need to want to go to a psychiatrist. Or be willing to speak to someone. Just forcing him would probably reinforce these delusions. But with how potent these disillusions are that he's some wraith named Reaper, I'm not sure where to start."

"Gabriel always was a difficult man," Ana said.

" _I'M NOT GABRIEL!_ " Reaper hissed.

"There! That stubbornness," Ana said, jabbing an accusatory finger at him, "That is Gabriel. Only Gabriel would be that stubborn in the face of facts."

" _I'm not stubborn-!_ " Reaper paused. He was not...

"So there is something in you that still knows your Gabriel Reyes," Angela said, quite smugly as Reaper appeared too stunned to retort. "There's hope for you, my friend. And I will keep to my word and drag your sorry ass down the road of recovery, even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming."

" _Leave me alone,_ " Reaper muttered, clearly defeated.

"Very well, rest for now Gabriel. I will soon have some idea of how to at least slow this rot that is happening to you."

* * *

"...it is... awful to see him like that," Ana admitted when they had closed the door and started walking up to Angela's higher level clinic.

"I know, but we're going to fix it or help him at least," Angela said.

"... How can we fix that? You said it yourself, there are huge parts of him that are nanites," Ana pointed out.

"I don't want to get rid of them," Angela explained, "They appear incorporated with him at this point and I doubt that he could unlearn how to live without them. But, if I can get them to do what they were originally intended to do, perhaps that would be a step in the right direction."

"What were they originally intended to do?"

"If I had to make a guess, it would appear they were meant to keep Gabriel's physical state intact. From what I could observe and with more than a little educational guessing, something happened to cause his body to deteriorate at a cellular level. The nanites might have been a counter measure but they instead weaponized that instability and cause something like this and then the explosion at the Swiss base..."

"Just made it worse."

"Exactly. So if I can instead make them do what they were intended to do then perhaps I can make Gabriel human like. Maybe I can even cut down on the nanites and replace the parts that they're making up with prosthetics and just have the amount necessary to keep him stable. Maybe--"

"You're quite fired up about this," Ana chuckled.

"I am. I have to be. Gabriel's life is on the line and someone already took advantage of him once, just based on the nanites. I won't do that to him."

"I know," Ana smiled. "You may not be sunshines and rainbows, but you're a good woman."

"Gee, thanks," Angela groaned, rolling her eyes and giggling when Ana thumped her shoulder friendly like.

* * *

[Overwatch Channel: It's Genji Bitch]

GENJI: Found a hoodie of his in the fake wall  
JESSE: fuck i miss him :(  
GENJI: Same, it wasn't fair that he left us  
ANGIE: mission go well boys?  
JESSE: yeah, found out that talon is hunting reaper, who's apparently skipped out on them  
ANGIE: strange  
JESSE: now missions are stopped until somethins done about him :/  
ANGIE: im sorry i miss him too  
JESSE: not much that can be done, you cant bring back dead men  
ANGIE: never say never jesse  
JESSE: :P  
GENJI: still it'll be quiet without missions and while Winston is trying to get Ghost and 76 to hunt down reaper  
GENJI: I don't understand why me or Jesse can't help, we've hunted people down before

[PM from LENA to ANGIE: I KNOW WHO YOU'RE HIDING!!!]  
[PM from ANGIE to LENA: excuse me?]  
[PM from LENA to ANGIE: I've been jumping, help keep the ol' chrometer loose and I SAW HIM!]  
[PM from LENA to ANGIE: Let me see Gabe!]

Angela's blood ran cold.

[PM from ANGIE to LENA: my dear are you alright? gabriel is dead perhaps you went backwards instead of forwards?]  
[PM from LENA to ANGIE: No, he was here because he was with Jack oh and totally saw that Jack was 76 from a mile away love, didn't need the jump to see it coming]  
[PM from LENA to ANGIE: My jump didn't show me where you're hiding him though, TELL ME!]  
[PM from ANGIE to LENA: my dear, please rest, your clearly suffering from disillusions and not thinking clearly]  
[PM from LENA to ANGIE: nvm I jumped back and asked him so ta! =D]

Angela bolted up and start running to her lower level main lab, despite the fact that she knew she would never beat Lena there. Some panicked part of her mind just wanted action and movement. But there she was, panting and breathing hard in her lab as Lena threw back the curtain to reveal Gabriel, who was now squinting and then glaring right back.

"Gabe!" Lena grinned.

" _What the fuck?_ " Gabriel rasped.

"You're here, just like you said you were!" Lena chirped.

"Lena, please," Angela said.

" _What the fuck are you on about?_ "

"You silly. I was jumping to keep my device working, nice and loose and all that. And I jumped forward and I saw you, here! Happy, safe and sound!" Lena explained. "Not sure how far into the future it was, but you're here, you were smiling and laughing! When I asked, you explained it all!"

Wait...

"How did he... look?" Angela asked.

“Normal, old,” Lena said before gesturing to her hair, “His hair was finally gone all grey. Finally looked like he had taken a nap.”

“ _Who you calling old, brat?_ ” Gabriel snarled.

“You, because you specifically say ‘I’m an old bastard and won’t accept the truth.’,” Lena pointed out.

“More stubbornness,” Angela retorted.

“ _We’re not getting into this again,_ ” Gabriel hissed.

“But please Lena, you can’t--”

“Mums the word, Angie,” Lena smiled, “I promise not to tell anyone about what I saw, what’s going to happen, or try and change the timeline. I know better than that. Also future you threatened to beat me over the head with your staff.”

“...That does sound like me. But I digress, and I must ask… why are you not upset?” Angela questioned. “Gabriel has done terrible things, Lena. Gabriel has done horrible, horrible things. How can you so readily forgive him?”

Lena just tapped her accelerator, and then dragged two fingers along her lips like she was zipping them before making an exaggerated throwing away gesture. Damn this woman and all her knowledge of the future but presnese enough to know to not tell anyone. God only knew what secrets Lena knew from her bouncing around the time stream… Actually Angela never wanted to know.

“Well I don’t suppose you know who is next on the list of people that Gabriel meets?” Angela sighed.

“You see a good Hasselhoff movie recently?” Lena said crypticly before leaving, whistling innocently as she went.

Angela sighed heavily as Gabriel went back to glaring at her. At least they got a clue. Reinhardt was next but Angela very much wanted some time to get Gabriel up to snuff if a fight broke out. As far as she knew, it was herself, Ana, Lena and Gabriel’s broken powers against the rest of Overwatch and Reinhardt may have been an old sweetheart, but he could still very much kick all their asses.

“Behave,” She hissed at the man before leaving and going back to her main clinic. Research notes were there and more importantly, her phone with its secure line.

After looking over the numbers of this expert and making sure that she had the right one that the man had under his media page for published research. Before calling it, Angela wondered briefly how she was going to explain this all to Winston when strangers started showing up on base. A short chime tinkled from the speaker end of her phone as she contemplated the many possibilities that would make sense before a gruff voice answered.

“ _Dr. Steel speaking._ ”

“Hello Dr. Steel, I am doctor Angela Ziegler, we have conversed through email.”

“ _Ah, Dr. Ziegler, I’ve been waiting on this call. So, you have something about nanites for me to look over?_ ”

“Yes, though it’s nature is one that demands discretion. May I ask that you come to my location if I were to divulge its coordinates to you?”

* * *

Ga-- Reaper. Reaper. Reaper was not doing well. Reaper was not doing well at all.

First Ana and now Lena, both accepted him with too wide and too friendly arms. But not him! They accepted _Gabriel_ and he was fucking dead, deader than dead, the man was fucking ash, there was no corpse left and they were were the ones that were delusional. They saw a dead man in a monster’s face, refused to accept that he was dead. Gabriel was dead and he was Reaper. The poor bastard’s mistakes, moves and motives were gone and…

Perhaps… not all.

Gabriel had hated Talon with such a burning passion that it had carried onto Reaper when he had taken up what was left of the poor bastard when he was made paste by the explosion. Just thinking of what they had done that Gabriel knew and now that Reaper knew made him want to put holes into something. The shit that went down when they infiltrated Overwatch and Blackwatch, setting the the chess board to take all the pieces. Not to mention the final pawn that had sent it all crumbling down because Gabriel had been to trusting of a fool; Moira.

How close had Reaper been to taking her down when he had started losing control? Maybe he started losing control because she had found out and was torturing him for even trying to take her down. Maybe this was fate’s way of telling him that he should have just accepted his new life as a monster and stopped carrying out the rage of dead men. The wishes of dead men. Old revenge and old hatreds. Reaper went on and on about how Gabriel was dead but it seemed that he was the one that was keeping some of that sorry bastard alive.

“ _I need to let him go… I need to let him go… why can’t I let him go?_ ”

“Cause he’s not dead.”

Lena blinked in front of Reaper, sitting on the bed between his legs.

“ _Shouldn’t you be shooting me? I vaugely recalled you being upset that Doomfist’s gauntlet was smashed because of me and Widowmaker,_ ” Reaper pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest to level a glare at the woman so brazenly sitting before him. “ _Also I’ve hurt a lot of people that you care about, Lena. Hell I’ve probably killed a few too._ ”

“I know.”

“... _Then why do you forgive me?_ ”

Lena shrugged, insufferably casual. “Seems like the good and heroly thing to do.”

“ _Heroes take down the bad guys._ ”

“I don’t think you’re a bad guy, at least not a very good one,” Lena said, shrugging again. Again so insufferably casual about all this. “I always thought that there was more going on then anyone ever let on. Also to be fair? You get your arse handed to you a lot, it’s hard to not just feel sorry for the abuse you go through.”

Reaper glared at her.

“And Gabe, you don’t see what I see. I see all kinds of blimsy shite when I bounce around,” Lena sighed, leaning back as she looked up at the ceiling. “And I saw you in the future, this timeline’s future before you start that nonsense. You’re here, your happy, you smile! I haven’t seen you smile in years and that includes way back in Blackwatch and Overwatch days. And you must be sleeping because those bags look a helluva lot better in the future.”

“... _I don’t believe you._ ”

“That’s okay, I know I’m right and that’s all that matters,” Lena grinned broadly. “And I know we can bring you back, Gabe. Not sure how you get from point a to point b, but you’ll get there. It’s written in stone luv.”

Reaper grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Lena. She only smiled back.

“ _You can’t save me._ ”

“We can and we will.”

“ _No one wants to forgive me._ ”

“I do! Ana does, Angie does, others want too.”

Reaper sighed deeply.

“I can do this allllllll night Gabe,” Lena beamed.

And she probably could, Reaper thought bitterly before accepting it.

* * *

“And Jesse and Hanzo are kind of tiptoeing around one another right now. I think it’s more on Hanzo’s end and his dealing with the trauma and all that stuff. Also I think he’s trying to work with things out with Genji too and Jesse’s a gent like that and ain’t pushing-- Hey Angie!”

“Good afternoon, Lena, Gabriel,” Angela smiled at the two of them. Reaper growled, folding his arms across his chest tighter as Lena just got more comfortable stretched out on his legs. “Telling Gabe about our local gossip?”

“Yep, telling them about good ol’ East and West,” Lena giggled.

“Careful Lena, that’s his son that you’re talking about,” Angela smirked, grinning when Reaper reacted involuntarily and snarled defensively. Shit, those old parental instincts were still strong as ever towards Jesse. Reaper hated how he was thinking of checking this asshole out that Jesse was apparently pining over, too much like an overprotective father.

“Hanzo’s not bad… he’s got a long way to go, but he’s not bad,” Lena shrugged. “Want me to tell him about the resident polycule instead?”

“Better,” Angela said while she went to work at her desk and Lena regaled Reaper with tales of Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Ana and Ingrid. Apparently there was much the same going on about what was going on before the fall. Reinhardt spent a lot of time with Torbjorn and Ingrid, especially holidays, and was spending more time with Ana lately since her reveal to be alive (at least to a select few operatives. Apparently most only knew her as a medical sniper named Shade.)

Reaper wanted to not care. These people nothing to him. They meant something to Gabriel at one point but he was fucking dead no matter what these delusional assholes thought. But these old feelings of Gabriel lingered and it brought a sense of peace knowing that they were okay and functioning now. That they were alive and happy… it made Reaper sick to his stomach that he felt relieved to hear this all.

“Whatcha thinkin’ doc?” Lena asked after she had run out of anecdotes to tell, noting that Angela had gathered her staff and was looking her samples over again.

“I might need to ask you to leave the room here in a moment,” Angela muttered, “I need to use the concentrated healing on Gabriel to see if it can jump start enough of his nanites to halt or reverse some of this cellular rot before it gets worse.”

“ _I told you to just let me die,_ ” Reaper growled.

“Why would I have to leave?” Lena asked.

“Unfortunately, Gabriel’s cells did in fact, suffer backlash from it,” Angela said, pulling up her notes. “A moment after the beam hit them, Gabriel’s cells violently rejected the cells that were deemed unrepairable and… for lack of a better term, proceeded to freak out in the process and almost broken the jar that the sample was in trying to purge itself. I expect a much larger and violent reaction out of the source.”

“... _This sounds like it’s going to hurt like a bitch,_ ” Reaper rasped, “ _You gonna get that revenge against me during it?_ ”

“No, and you really need to stop thinking of me as an enemy, Gabriel. I am only here to help.”

“ _I’ll believe the world and every fucking soul on it isn’t out to get me when I stop being an affront on human existence,_ ” Reaper snarled.

“Hush,” Angela tisked before grabbing her staff and aiming it at him. Lena quickly blinked out of the way, leaving Reaper to face down that damned staff of Angela’s as she tinkered with something before it started humming worryingly. His talons dug into the bed as every muscle braced for the impact.

“I’m sorry if this hurts, Gabriel,” Angela said before blasting him.

It felt warm for a moment. Like a warm syrupy bath almost and for a moment, it felt well and Reaper could forget his troubles and aches and pains. 

And then something akin to the pins and prickles of flesh being asleep started across his skin. 

And then the pain grew sharper and deeper and Reaper’s teeth gnashed together hard as he fought to keep down the need to scream in pain. But the pain just kept getting sharper and deeper, like red hot needles were being forced further and further into his flesh, his bones and nerves. It soon became one of the worst bouts of pain that Gabriel had ever endured and the first screech of pain escaped him after only a few seconds.

“Stop! Stop!”

“I can’t stop! He needs help!”

The pain of being born had not hurt this much and that had been ever cell and nanites that comprised Reaper’s form being rewritten against the laws of nature and man. That had been the echoes of Gabriel Reyes being blow apart in the Swiss base explosion. Countless times of being shot, stabbed, thrown, crushed, punched and kicked. Nothing compared to this, the feeling of every cell, neigh every atom, in his being screaming from white hot pain as he seemed to just drown in it. Blood was on his tongue from the force of his screaming, the flesh of his throat struggling to not just rip apart and tear.

“STOP IT YOU’RE HURTING HIM!”

“I can’t stop! I have to save Gabriel!”

“Gabe?!”

_“Gabriel? You meet your new roommate yet?”_

_Gabriel barely looked up from his meal before side eyeing the blonde at the corner of the cafeteria, currently being lead around by one of the instructors that was supposed to be drilling them. Late arrival, along with a few others. Gabriel, who had been hoping to cruise on a ‘whoops’ in the rooming situation and enjoy a room to himself, had been informed that one ‘Jack Morrison’ would be joining him shortly._

_“No,” Gabriel gruffed._

_“Maybe you should, you know? Talk to him?”_

_Gabriel rolled his eyes and kept picking at his rations. He would have thought that some military experience would get him used to this shit, but no one got used to mysterious gruel in various colors and horrenoud textures._

_“And this ray of fucking sunshine--” Gabriel got smacked upside the head with a clipboard, turning to glare at the instructor and the blonde. When had they crossed the room over here? “Is your new roommate, Gabriel Reyes. Don’t let the resting bitch face fool you, Reyes is all mush underneath his prickly edgelord crust.”_

_“Man, fuck you,” Gabriel grumbled._

_“Uh huh, you’ll be saying that after suicide sprints this afternoon. Why don’t you earn brownie points and chat up your roommate before showing him to his bunk?” The instructor quipped before leaving one slightly awkward blonde with him._

_“... Gabriel Reyes,” Gabriel sighed._

_“Jack Morrison.”_

_“Well… let’s go,” Gabriel sighed, leaving his unappeal meal to whatever before standing and ambling to his room that he would be sharing with this new guy._

_“So…”_

_“So?”_

_“How many edgelord layers of Reyes do I have to break apart to get to the mushy center of the Gabriel pop?”_

_Gabriel snorted before he could stop himself before just laughing. Most people were put off by his prickliness but it seemed that this guy was not in the least bit, grinning as Gabriel laughed._

_“A few, jackass,” Gabriel snorted loudly. “But I’ll give you that one.”_

_“So, is this start of a legendary friendship?” Jack grinned._

_“One layer at a time, Morrison,” Gabriel smirked back._

_“Jack.”_

“ _Jack,_ ” Reaper wheezed weakly, feeling streams of his cool blood drip out of the side of his mouth.

“I think it’s over,” Angela said, literally dropping her staff to the ground to rush to his side to check on him.

“ _Jack,_ ” Reaper wheezed, feeling wetness drip down his face, making eyes on his cheeks burn.

“I know, Gabriel, I know,” Angela said. “There’s no need to cry.”

“ _Jack…_ ”

* * *

Soldier 76 was alerted to a presence by his visor. 

It had perimeter alerts that would wake him if he actually managed to sleep for once. Mostly he was a ‘work until you drop’ sort of guy, far too focused on his goals to give a damn about the ‘now’ and his ‘health’. It saved his life on more than one occasion as Talon agents or other bounty hunters that were after his head would wait for his weakest moment only to be met with an alarm blaring in his ear and a gun aimed at their face.

It was a subtle movement alerted his alarm and a sharp beeping start hammering away at his ear. His rifle was aimed at Angela’s face. To her credit, Angela did not flinch, just stared him down hard as he lowered his gun to look at her.

“Can I help you Dr. Ziegler?” Soldier 76 gruffed loudly.

She grabbed his right wrist and pulled him to his feet, displaying strength that he was not aware that she had. Sure, Soldier 76 was pumped full of super soldier chemicals and a soldier and mercenary by trade, but he supposed that being a doctor and just generally being her usual self would allow Angela to bulk up enough to physically manhandle him around.

Sighing, Soldier 76 followed Angela’s tugging, trailing after her as she lead him through the darkened and mostly sleeping base. Must have been… two or three in the morning. What the fuck was Angela doing up? And what the fuck was she doing leading him towards?

“Angela, what the hell is going on?” Soldier 76 gruffed.

“Quiet,” Angela snipped.

She lead him down to the bottom level of Overwatch. Where Athena’s range was thin and Angela’s main clinic was. Sighing, figuring that she was dragging him for a physical, Soldier 76 started his usual spiel about ‘not really an Overwatch agent’ and ‘now’s now a good time’ and his usual bullshit for skipping her physicals. When she opened the door, she yanked him inside to slam the door shut behind them.

“What now?” Soldier 76 asked.

“Here, see our friend,” Angela said, going over to a curtained off area before sliding the curtain out of place.

“See… oh my god.”

Reaper… Gabriel…

“You’re now a part of this, Jack,” Angela said, “We must drag Gabriel out of his own personal hell that he has trapped himself. I believe you are key to coaxing him out of that dark place. I can heal his body, I will need help, but I can do it. But the wounds of his mind are something that I need your help with.”

Her pistol cocked and Jack looked at the weapon in her hand.

“Wither you like it or not.”


End file.
